


For The Touch Of An Ungloved Hand

by PhoenixAccio



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pheromones, Touch-Starved, but like. its not, but not in a horny way!, could be read as platonic, hypersocial irkens, im just touch starved and gay okay let me live, insect-like irkens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24791854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixAccio/pseuds/PhoenixAccio
Summary: Irkens were never meant to be solitary creatures. Sometimes loneliness brings with it an ache you don't know is there until you have someone with you to ease it.
Relationships: Invader Skoodge & Zim, Invader Skoodge/Zim
Comments: 1
Kudos: 70





	For The Touch Of An Ungloved Hand

"Zim? I'm home!"

Skoodge pushed open the front door of Zim's base, stepping inside.

"Hrng," said Zim from the couch.

"What are you doing, Zim?"

"What does it look like Zim is doing, Skoodge? I am trying to enjoy the couch!"

"Where's Gir?" Skoodge asked. "Isn't he usually watching his monkey show right now?"

"Gir is out. He is playing the 'videoed games' with the Dibstink's human meatsibling. Zim is recording the monkey for him so he can watch it later."

"Okay," Skoodge replied, sitting down at the end of the couch not occupied by Zim.

"How are you doing, Zim? I expected you to be... scheming, or something."

"Zim did not.... feel like 'scheming' today."

"I thought you always felt like scheming?"

"Well I don't today, alright?!" Zim snapped. "I am enjoying the couch!"

"Okay, that's fine," Skoodge rescinded. "I'm sorry i pushed."

"It's fine," Zim muttered, rolling onto his side to face the back of the couch.

"Want to watch something?" Skoodge said after a moment. "You can just listen if you want."

Zim gave a noncommital grunt that meant yes, so Skoodge turned on the TV and began flipping through the channels. Eventually, he landed on one playing Wheel of Fortune. Skoodge knew Zim liked watching the humans guess the wrong words, so he stopped flipping channels and let the show play.

Skoodge had expected Zim to warm up a little once the show got going, maybe roll over to see the show, even if he wasn't up to yelling at the moment, so he was somewhat concerned when as the show progressed Zim curled up gradually into a tight ball still facing the back of the sofa. Skoodge let the show run as he turned to look at Zim properly, concern filling his gaze. He knew if he asked if Zim was okay again he wouldn't get anywhere productive any time soon, so he tried a different approach.

"Zim, do you need anything from me?"

Zim didn't respond, just curled up tighter. Skoodge sighed.

"I'll be right back," he said gently, then stood and headed to the kitchen. He grabbed a juicebox and a bag of chips, as well as a blanket from a nearby pile, and brought them back to the couch.

"Here, I got you something," said Skoodge, handing Zim the drink and opening the chips so Zim could help himself. Finally, he shook out the blanket and placed it over Zim's body. As he placed the blanket gingerly over Zim, Skoodge's gloved hand brushed Zim's face, and Zim let out an involuntary whine pressing into the fleeting touch even as Skoodge pulled away.

"Oh," Skoodge breathed. He knew what was wrong. Irkens were a hypersocial species, on a biological level. No matter how hard they tried, even Irk's best geneticists couldn't change that. Still, contact was discouraged between Irken soldiers in an attempt to encourage independance.

Very young smeets were permitted limited touch as forbidding this had been proven to severely stunt their development, but once a certain age was reached, soldiers were expected to phase this behaviour out. (Sparring, as a side note, was considered acceptible contact, as it was important for training purposes. This rule resulted in frequent full-contact fights among irkens in shared living quarters, but this was apparently a risk the empire was willing to take.) Even without physical contact, irkens could survive reasonably, but problems began to arise as the empire began its Invader program. 

As it turned out, an Irken left alone with no physical contact or social interaction for the timespans necessary for deep-space travel became a defective irken very quickly, and soon after, a dead one. Thus came the advent of the SIR unit. Effacious at data collection as they are, SIR units also served an alternate purpose: providing the bare minimum interaction to keep invaders in peak condition until they could return to Irk. Usually, Gir was good at his job and Zim had enough interaction with Skoodge not to have issues, but Gir had been spending a lot of time doing his own thing recently, at Skoodge had been out a good deal of the time these last few weeks. Zim probably just needed some contact.

Skoodge sighed. He reached down to Zim, back to staring at the sofa-back, and carefully ran a gloved hand over his shoulder. As soon as Skoodge made contact, Zim gasped, pressing into the touch again. Skoodge stroked Zim's face gently, then pulled his hand back again, considering. After a moment, he carefully pulled off his gloves, laying them on the arm of the couch. On Irk, this would be completely socially unacceptable, but this wasn't Irk. Skoodge could do what he wanted.

He reached back down and stroked Zim's face with his newly-bared hand. As soon as he made contact, a shudder ran through Zim's entire body as he gasped.

"Oh, do that again,"

Skoodge raised his eyebrows, pulling his hand back. If Zim was dropping his pretence of superiority like this, it must have been good. Skoodge's bare palm was tingling intensely already, and he'd barely even done anything, so he couldn't imagine how it must have felt on the receiving end. Cautiously, he stroked Zim's cheek again. He could feel his antennae spasm from the contact, as he watched Zim's do the same.

Zim released the slightest of moans as Skoodge's hand dragged along the surface of his skin, closing his eyes and leaning into the contact, and Skoodge shivered. He slid his hand over Zim's face again, and watched Zim react, tensing up, then relaxing at the sensation of skin-to-skin contact for the first time in over a century. Skoodge could smell pheromones in the air, now. Chemicals that had been building up since Zim's smeethood were releasing all at once to intermingle with Skoodge's own, syrupy sweet and soft. The air was heavy with it, and Skoodge could feel the rush of touch-starved yearning shoot through him, not like lightning, but like a spot of skin warmed for nearly too long by the sun. Skoodge had to bite back the strong purr in his chest to speak.

"We- we should go somewhere more..."

Appropriate for this? Private? Well-ventilated? Skoodge didn't have the mental capacity to finish the sentence, but Zim seemed like he understood. He likely felt the same way, if the pheromones were affecting him like they were Skoodge. Zim nodded up at Skoodge, and practically melted in Skoodge's arms as he was lifted off the couch, blanket and all. Gently, his own legs shaking, Skoodge carried Zim out of the living room and made a beeline for the basement.

*

Either not much or an eternity later, depending on who one was to ask, Skoodge found a room he deemed appropriate in the house's lower levels. He had remembered seeing the small room before, but it had taken him some time to remember its location. The room to which Skoodge was bringing Zim was small and cube-like, with a door that locked and a heating vent in the corner. Using the system of pneumatic tubes that connected each area of Zim's base, Skoodge had requested he be brought all the pillows and blankets the house's unenthusiastic AI could find, which Skoodge had immediately begun meticulously arranging across the floor of the tiny room as soon as they'd arrived. Once the room had been decorated to Skoodge's satisfaction, he stepped in and placed Zim down, closing (and locking) the door behind him.

The room was immediately dark, but for the flood lights right by the ceiling, and Skoodge sighed as he curled up next to Zim. It briefly crossed Skoodge's mind that nesting like this--because he was nesting, really--would never be possible on Irk. Skoodge allowed this thought to settle in his head for a moment, then let it pass. Irk didn't care about Skoodge, so Skoodge, he decided, should not care about Irk either. 

He reached out again, hunkering down deeper into the softness, and stroked his miraculously un-gloved hands over the softness of Zim's face. As Zim's antennae moved back to rest against his head, Skoodge felt the purr restart in his chest. He was happy. Zim was happy. They were curled up together, safer these past few years than in their entire lives Before. Skoodge could smell the pheromones in the warm air of this new room, he could feel the presence of Zim beside him, he could hear the whirring of both their PAKs, and the lower, more organic hum of the purring in both their chests, and Skoodge, for the first time, knew exactly what he wanted. Zim nuzzled into Skoodge as Skoodge pet his head and back, and Skoodge smiled. He'd never really come to terms with being defective, being short, and ugly, and everything else he'd been called (and there was a lot of it), but right now he was grateful to have been shunned by the Empire for so long. If it weren't for them, Skoodge wouldn't have had the perspective to realize the Irken Empire, the Tallests, weren't all-knowing and perfect. He wouldn't have had the opportunity to come to Earth and be away from them. Maybe if he'd been just a little bit taller, or had a handful fewer coding errors in his PAK, he would be on some other conquered planet now, a glorious invader and acknowledged as one, but he would never have been here, now, with Zim, and right now, there was no place in the universe he'd rather have been.


End file.
